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| Court rejects application filed by prosecution | | | Jammu, Dec 6: In an application filed by prosecution under section 540 of CrPC with the prayer that two witnesses -- Dr S Malani, Director Psychology Division FSL, Bangalore, and Dr B Mohan, Director FSL, Bangalore -- as FSL expert and PW Sanjay Singh, Hari Singh, Vinod Kumar Gupta and B S Tuti IPS are yet to be examined and their testimony is important for just disposal of the case and production of these witnesses for recording their statements will not amount to filing up of lacuna in the prosecution case.
Principal Sessions Judge Jammu RS Jain after hearing both the sides observed that the challan is pending disposal in this court since the year 2009 and the accused are under trial for the last 4/5 years. Vide order dated 22.9.2014 the evidence of the prosecution was closed and the case was posted for recording the statements of accused in terms of section 342 Cr.P.C. Record further shows that during the period of trial about 45 calendars comprising of about 120 days have been fixed for production of witnesses. Prosecution has been also given summons for their witnesses on number of occasions including Dr Malani and Dr Mohan.
Inspite of opportunities and summons given to the prosecution they were unable to get them served and even order dated 22.9.2014 whereby evidence of prosecution was closed has not been challenged by the state prosecution in the superior court. It may be noted herein that after the closure of evidence of the prosecution, application under section 540 of CrPC was filed by the prosecution seeking permission of the court to examine the witnesses mentioned in the application which included two witnesses from Bangalore.
Permission was given to the prosecution to produce and examine these witnesses. Despite opportunity given to the prosecution, it did not produce the said witnesses from Bangalore. Vide order dated 13.11.2014 prosecution witnesses namely Hari Singh and Vinod Kumar Gupta, as per the report of process serving agency of State shows that no such person of these names resides at the address given by the prosecution. It be also noted that the application field by the prosecution for summoning Sanjay Singh, Hari Singh, Vinod Kumar Gupta and B S Tuti was allowed and the prosecution was given opportunity to examine these witnesses.
In pursuance of the permission given by the court, statements of Sajjad Khaliq, Sandeep Mehta, Majeeb Ur Rehman and Ravi Kumar were recorded.
Despite being given numerous opportunities to the prosecution, the prosecution has not examined the aforementioned other witnesses and even in the application filed by the prosecution under section 540 of Cr.P.C, the court directed the prosecution to produce the said witnesses but it failed to examine these witnesses.
The court observed that now the prosecution again filed the present application for examining the aforesaid witnesses. Instead of producing the witnesses, the entire record seems to suggest that the prosecution plan seems to prolong the trial of the present case. Had it performed duties efficiently, this situation would not have arisen and in fact entire witnesses cited in the challans could have been examined during the last five/six year. But sleeping over the production of witnesses in court seems to have become routine for the state prosecution agency in every case, be it of criminal or civil nature in almost every court, resulting in delay in disposal of the cases. It is high time that the State Prosecuting Agency which is a major litigant formulate an Action Plan for timely production of witnesses/objections etc.
With these observations, the court dismissed the application filed by the prosecution. (JNF) |
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